Язык и культура: Краткая история США (XV—XIX века) = Language and Culture: A Brief History of the USA (XV—XIX centuries)

МИНИСТЕРСТВО НАУКИ И ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ
Федеральное государственное бюджетное
образовательное учреждение
высшего образования «Московский авиационный институт
(национальный исследовательский университет)»

И.Э. Коротаева
Н.И. Христофорова

ЯЗЫК И КУЛЬТУРА
Краткая история США
(XV—XIX века)

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
A Brief History of the USA
(XV—XIX centuries)

Учебное пособие по лингвострановедению

Рекомендовано Редакционно-издательским советом
Московского авиационного института
(национального исследовательского университета)
в качестве учебного пособия

Москва
Издательство «ФЛИНТА»
2023

УДК 811.111(075.8)
ББК 81.432.1я73
К68

А в т о р ы:
И.Э. Коротаева — канд. филол. наук, доцент, зав. кафедрой
И-11 «Иностранный язык для аэрокосмических специальностей» Института 
иностранных языков Московского авиационного института
(национального исследовательского университета) (МАИ);
Н.И. Христофорова — канд. филол. наук, доцент, доцент кафедры И-11 
«Иностранный язык для аэрокосмических специальностей»
Института иностранных языков Московского авиационного института
(национального исследовательского университета) (МАИ)

Р е ц е н з е н т ы:
кафедра «Специальной языковой подготовки» 
Федерального государственного бюджетного образовательного учреждения 
высшего образования «Московский государственный технический университет 
гражданской авиации» (МГТУ ГА)
(Е.В. Черняева — зав. кафедрой, канд. пед. наук, доцент)
В.В. Ощепкова — д-р филол. наук, проф., проф. кафедры
английской филологии Федерального государственного бюджетного 
образовательного учреждения высшего образования
«Московский государственный областной педагогический университет»

К68 

Коротаева И.Э.
Язык и культура: Краткая история США (XV—XIX века) = 
Language and Culture: A Brief History of the USA (XV—XIX 
centuries)  : учебное пособие по лингвострановедению / И.Э. Коротаева, 
Н.И. Христофорова. — Москва : ФЛИНТА, 2023. — 132 с. — 
ISBN 978-5-9765-5304-0. — Текст : электронный.

Учебное пособие по лингвострановедению посвящено истории развития 
американского общества в XV—XIX веках. Особое внимание 
уделяется американским реалиям (понятиями и явлениями) и их отражению 
в языке.
Пособие 
предназначено 
для 
студентов, 
обучающихся 
по 
направлению подготовки 45.03.02 — «Лингвистика», также может быть 
использовано в качестве дополнительного материала на практических 
занятиях по иностранному языку со студентами нелингвистических 
специальностей.

УДК 811.111(075.8) 
ББК 81.432.1я73

ISBN 978-5-9765-5304-0 
© Коротаева И.Э., Христофорова Н.И., 2023
© Издательство «ФЛИНТА», 2023

CONTENTS

Предисловие  ....................................................................................................5

UNIT  1. Discovery  .......................................................................................7
1.1. Background: Native Americans  ................................................................8
1.2. Leif Ericson  .............................................................................................12
1.3. Christopher Columbus  ............................................................................13

UNIT  2. The Early Settlements in North America. Colonial Era  .........25
2.1. Why did the early colonists come to North America?  ............................26
2.2. Life of the Wilderness  .............................................................................27
2.3. First settlements  ......................................................................................29
2.4. Colonial Culture  ......................................................................................32

UNIT  3. The American War of Independence  ........................................41
3.1. The Roots of American Revolution  ........................................................43
3.1.1. The French and Indian War. The Stamp Act
and the Quartering Act  .................................................................43
3.1.2. Boston Massacre  ..........................................................................45
3.1.3. Boston Tea Party  ..........................................................................46
3.2. The American War of Independence. The Declaration
of Independence  ......................................................................................46

UNIT  4. The American Constitution  .......................................................58
4.1. Drafting a Constitution  ...........................................................................58
4.2. The Constitution: separation of powers  ..................................................61
4.3. The Bill of Rights  ....................................................................................65
4.4. America’s fi rst political parties  ...............................................................66
4.5. The fi rst Presidents of the USA  ...............................................................67

UNIT  5. Westward Expansion of European Settlements
in North America  ...........................................................................................80
5.1. Frontier Spirit  ..........................................................................................80
5.2. Beyond the Mississippi. The Louisiana Purchase  ...................................83
5.3. West to the Pacifi c Ocean  ........................................................................85

UNIT  6. The Civil War  ..............................................................................94
6.1. The Civil War  ..........................................................................................95
6.2. Abraham Lincoln  ....................................................................................98

6.3. Why the North Won: Lincoln and Davis  .................................................99
6.4. The Emancipation Proclamation  ...........................................................100

UNIT  7. Reconstruction  ..........................................................................110
7.1. Reconstruction of the South  .................................................................. 111
7.2. Amendments to the Constitution  ..........................................................116
7.3. “Carpetbaggers”  ....................................................................................118
7.4. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision  ...........................................................119

Bibliography  .................................................................................................130

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Данное учебное пособие предназначено для студентов лингвистических 
вузов и направлено на формирование у них межкультурной 
коммуникативной компетенции.
Целью пособия является объединение в учебном процессе 
иностранного языка и информации из сферы национальной 
культуры и истории одной из стран, в которой английский язык 
является основным языком, — Соединённых Штатов Америки. 
Пособие направлено на создание у изучающих английский 
язык историко-социокультурной базы знаний об историческом 
развитии США и развитие навыка лингвистического анализа 
текста с учётом специфики лингвистических и национально-
куль турологических характеристик страны. Особое внимание 
уде ляется американским реалиям (понятиями и явлениями) и их 
отражению в языке.
Пособие написано в соответствии с программой учебной 
дисциплины «Культура и история стран изучаемого языка» 
(тема «США»).
Пособие состоит из 7 разделов, информация в которых излагается 
в хронологическом порядке. Такое представление материала 
позволяет проследить развитие американского варианта 
английского языка в связи с историческими и культурными событиями, 
происходящими в стране.
Каждый 
раздел 
начинается 
с 
«Временны́ х 
линеек» 
(“Timelines”), помогающих сориентироваться во времени и событиях.

Далее представлены аутентичные тексты, посвящённые различным 
этапам развития США и содержащие большое количество 
исторических реалий, которые объясняются в сносках или 
представлены в «Словнике» (“Wordlist”) после текста. «Словник» 
представляет собой банк слов и словосочетаний. Он содержит 
транскрипцию слов, отражает принадлежность лексической 
единицы к той или иной части речи, показывает оттенки значений 
слов. Благодаря использованию в «Словнике» не одного 

значения слова (то есть не готового варианта перевода), а различных 
оттенков значения, студентам даётся возможность подумать 
и самостоятельно выбрать наиболее подходящий вариант 
перевода.
Учебное пособие построено таким образом, что сначала происходит 
постепенное накопление информации, а затем предлагаются 
упражнения на закрепление активной лексики, представленной 
в «Словнике». Итоговыми заданиями в каждом разделе 
являются упражнения на развитие навыков устной речи, в которых 
студентам на основе полученной информации предлагается 
создавать собственные тексты с использованием активной лексики, 
делать самостоятельные выводы.
Учебное пособие может быть использовано как на семинарах 
по дисциплинам «Культура и история стран изучаемого 
языка», «Лингвострановедение», «Лингвокультурология», так 
и для самостоятельной работы студентов. Кроме того, оно может 
оказаться интересным и полезным в качестве дополнительного 
материала студентам нелингвистических специальностей, 
 изучающим английский язык и интересующимся американским 
английским, историей и культурой США.

UNIT  1. Discovery

TIMELINE

Native Americans had inhabited the Western Hemisphere for 
 approximately 20,000 to 40,000 years. Other estimates run as high 
as 70,000 years.

from 
75,000 to 
8000 BC

Glaciers covered a large portion of North America, the 
ice cap extending southward to the approximate  present 
 border of the USA and Canada. These glaciers  interrupted 
the water cycle because moisture falling as rain or snow 
was caught by the glaciers and frozen and was thus 
 prevented from draining back into the seas or evaporating 
into the atmosphere. This process lowered ocean levels, 
exposing a natural land bridge spanning the Bering Strait 
across which people from Asia could easily migrate.

c. 8000 
BC1
The glacial cap began to retreat fairly rapidly, raising 
ocean levels to approximately their present-day levels and 
cutting off further migration from Asia. 

c. 5000 
BC
Indians 
in 
present-day 
Mexico 
began 
practicing 
 agriculture.

c. AD 
1000
A party of Icelandic Vikings under Leif Ericson sailed to 
the eastern coast of North America. Leif Ericson explored 
North America and founded temporary colony called 
 Vinland (ист. Винленд, Виноградная страна)2.

1492
Christopher Columbus landed on one of the Bahama 
 Islands in the Caribbean Sea.

1 с. — лат. circa приблизительно, около (Compare: approximately, roughly).

2 По предположениям учёных, викинги побывали в Северной Америке в 
начале XI в. и могут считаться первыми европейцами, открывшими этот континент [
Американа].

1.1. Background: Native Americans

By the time Europeans fi rst encountered the various peoples 
they collectively called Indians, Native Americans had inhabited 
the Western Hemisphere for approximately 20,000 to 40,000 years. 
Other estimates run as high as 70,000 years.
Although there is considerable disagreement about when these 
people fi rst appeared in the Americas, it is reasonable to assume 
that they fi rst migrated to the Western Hemisphere sometime in the 
middle of the Pleistocene Age. During that period (roughly from 
75,000 to 8000 BC), huge glaciers covered a large portion of North 
America, the ice cap extending southward to the approximate present 
border of the United States and Canada. These glaciers, which in 
some places were more than 9,000 feet thick, interrupted the water 
cycle because moisture falling as rain or snow was caught by the 
glaciers and frozen and was thus prevented from draining back into 
the seas or evaporating into the atmosphere.
This process lowered ocean levels 250 to 300 feet, exposing 
a natural land bridge spanning the Bering Strait (between 
present-day Alaska and the former Soviet Union) across which 
people from Asia could easily migrate, probably in search of game. 
It is almost certain that various peoples from Asia did exactly that 
and then followed an ice-free corridor along the base of the Rocky 
Mountains southward into the more temperate areas of the American 
Southwest (which, because of the glaciers, were wetter, cooler, and 
contained large lakes and forests) and then either eastward into 
other areas of North America or even farther southward into Central 
and South America. These migrations took thousands of years, 
and some Indian peoples were still moving when Europeans fi rst 
encountered them.
About 8000 BC, the glacial cap began to retreat fairly rapidly, 
raising ocean levels to approximately their present-day levels and 
cutting off further migration from Asia, thus isolating America’s 
fi rst human inhabitants from other peoples for thousands of years. 

This isolation was almost surely the cause of the inhabitants’ 
extraordinarily high susceptibility to the diseases that Europeans 
later brought with them, such as measles, tuberculosis, and 
smallpox, to which the peoples of other continents had built 
up natural resistance. The glacial retreat also caused large 
portions of the American Southwest to become hot and arid, thus 
scattering Indian peoples in almost all directions. Nevertheless, 
for thousands of years a strong oral tradition enabled Indians to 
preserve stories of their origins and subsequent isolation. Almost 
all Indian peoples retained accounts of a long migration from the 
west and a fl ood.
The original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere obtained 
their food principally by hunting and gathering, killing mammoths, 
huge bison, deer, elk, antelope, camels, horses, and other game 
with stone weapons and picking wild fruits and grasses. Beginning 
about 5000 BC, however, Indians in present-day Mexico began 
practicing agriculture. By the time Europeans arrived, most Indians 
were domesticating plants and raising crops, although their levels of 
agricultural sophistication were extremely diverse.
The development of agriculture (which occurred about the same 
time in Europe and the Americas) profoundly affected Indian life. 
Those peoples who adopted agriculture abandoned their nomadic 
ways and lived in settled villages (some of the Central American 
ones became magnifi cent cities). This more sedentary life permitted 
them to erect permanent housing, create and preserve pottery and art, 
and establish more complex political and social institutions. ... With 
more and better food, most likely Indian populations grew more 
rapidly, thus furthering the need for more complex political and 
social structures. The development of agriculture also affected these 
peoples’ religious beliefs and ceremonies, increasing the homage 
to sun and rain gods who could bring forth good harvests. Contact 
with other Indian peoples led to trading, a practice with which 
Indians were quite familiar by the time of European intrusion 
[Wheeler W.B., Becker S.D., 3—5].

Migration to America began more than 20,000 years ago. At that 
time, groups of wandering hunters followed herds of game (animals 
hunted for food) from Asia to America across a northern land bridge 
where the Bering Straits are today. These people settled throughout 
North and South America. They are considered to be the only 
“native” Americans. By the time Christopher Columbus, an Italian 
navigator employed by the Spanish monarchs, “discovered” the 
American continents in 1492, about one million Native Americans 
lived in the area that later became the United States [Maura 
Christopher. Immigration to America].

Christopher Columbus fi rst sailed south to the Canary Islands. 
Then he turned west across the unknown waters of the mid-Atlantic 
Ocean. Ten weeks after leaving Spain, on the morning of October 12, 
he stepped ashore on the beach of a low sandy island. He named 
the island San Salvador — Holy Savior. Columbus believed that he 
had landed in the Indies, a group of islands close to the mainland of 
India. For this reason he called the friendly, brown-skinned people 
who greeted him “los Indios” — in English, Indians.
In fact, Columbus was not near India. It was not the edge of Asia 
that he had reached, but islands off the shores of a new continent. 
Europeans would soon name the new continent America, but for 
many years they went on calling its inhabitants Indians. Only 
recently have these fi rst Americans been described more accurately 
as “Native Americans” or Amerindians.

Amerind ['æmərɪnd, 'æmə'rɪnd], Amerindian [ˌæmə'rɪndɪən, 
'æmə'rɪndjən] — америнд, американский индеец. Термин употребляется 
в научной литературе для обозначения индейца 
или эскимоса (сокращенное от American Indian). Впервые 
использован в 1897 г. антропологом Дж.У. Пауэллом (Powell, 
John Wesley) [Американа; Томахин Г.Д. США. Лингвострано-
ведческий словарь; ABBYY Lingvo].

There were many different groups of Amerindians. Those north 
of Mexico, in what is now the United States and Canada, were 
 scattered across the grasslands and forests in separate groups called 
“tribes.” These tribes followed very different ways of life. Some 
were hunters, some were farmers. Some were peaceful,  others 
 warlike. They spoke over three hundred separate languages, some 
of which were as different from one another as English is from 
 Chinese.
Europeans called America “the New World.” But it was not new 
to the Amerindians. Their ancestors had already been living there for 
maybe 50,000 years when Columbus stepped on to the beach in San 
Salvador.
We say “maybe” because nobody is completely sure.  Scientists 
believe that the distant ancestors of the Amerindians came to 
 America from Asia. This happened, they say, during the earth’s last 
ice age, long before people began to make written records.
At that time a bridge of ice joined Asia to America across what 
is now the Bering Strait. Hunters from Siberia crossed this bridge 
into Alaska. From Alaska the hunters moved south and east across 
America, following herds of caribou and buffalo as the animals 
went from one feeding ground to the next. Maybe 12,000 years ago, 
descendants of these fi rst Americans were crossing the isthmus of 
Panama into South America. About 5,000 years later their camp fi res 
were burning on the frozen southern tip of the continent, now called 
Tierra del Fuego — the Land of Fire.
For many centuries early Amerindians lived as wandering hun-
ters and gatherers of food. Then a more settled way of life began. 
People living in highland areas of what is now Mexico found a wild 
grass with tiny seeds that were good to eat. These people became 
America’s fi rst farmers. They cultivated the wild grass with great 
care to make its seeds larger. Eventually it became Indian corn, or 
maize. Other cultivated plant foods were developed. By 5000 BC 
Amerindians in Mexico were growing and eating beans, squash and 
peppers [O’Callaghan D.B., 4—7; Американа].

1.2. Leif Ericson

Around the year 1000 a party of Icelandic Vikings under Leif 
Ericson sailed to the eastern coast of North America. They landed 
at a place they called Vinland. Remains of a Viking settlement have 
been found in the Canadian province of Newfoundland. The Vikings 
may also have visited Nova Scotia and New England. They failed, 
however, to establish any permanent settlements, and they soon lost 
contact with the new continent [Jonathan Rose. History: Leif Ericson 
to 1865].

Leif Ericsson [ˈliːf (leif-, leiv-)ˈerɪks(ə)n] (970?—1020? / 
годы жизни неизвестны) — Norse explorer, son of Eric the Red. 
He sailed westward from Greenland (c. 1000) and visited land 
variously identifi ed as Labrador, Newfoundland, or New England, 
which he named Vinland because of the vines he claimed to have 
found growing there.
Vinland — the region of the NE coast of North America which 
was visited in the 11th century by Norsemen led by Leif  Ericsson. 
It was so named from the report that grapevines were found 
 growing there. The exact location is uncertain.
Лейф Эриксон — исландский викинг, скандинавский 
мореплаватель. По преданию, около 1000 г. н.э. открыл Северную 
Америку, которую назвал Винланд [ABBYY Lingvo; 
Томахин Г.Д. США. Лингвострановедческий словарь; Амери-
кана].

The Vikings were a sea-going people from Scandinavia in 
northern Europe. They were proud of their warriors and explorers 
and told stories called “sagas” about them. The saga of Leif Ericson 
tells how he sailed from Greenland to the eastern coast of North 
America in about the year AD 1000. When he found vines with 
grapes on them growing there, he named the place where he landed 
“Vinland the Good.”